THE END OF "JIM CROW" WOW !!!

Once again, African Americans are asked to cast a blind eye upon the political realities of what is at work in Mississippi and the Black Belt South. We have been asked to believe that our present governor, who helped to orchestrate white flight from the integrated public school system in the 1970s, would have the best interest of the State’s public schools in his heart. We live in a state that cannot bring itself to elect an African American to a statewide office, no matter what his or her qualifications are. A State which gleam with pride at the “Stars and Bars”. Yet cry about fairness, equality, Christian “Values”, and the American Constitutional System. Now we, African Americans, are asked to believe that “Jim Crow” is dead in the “Progressive”, “Conservative”, “Dixiecrat-Republican” State of Mississippi. I am referring to the following editorial from that great newspaper The Natchez Democrat, reprinted in the Clarion Ledger, Saturday, August 22, 2009, Page 9A. The title of the Article is “Voter ID Would Not Mean a Return to Jim Crow” Here it is:
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“If any area of Mississippi should support making voter identification a mandatory practice, Southwest Mississippi should.
In almost every election, allegations of voter fraud bubble up. The most recent case in Wilkinson County dragged on for months and months and sparked investigations from all sorts of sources. [Fraud has been a part of this Nation and this State since the grand old days of the Constitutional Convention in 1787]
Mississippi's voting system should be above reproach. At the moment, it's not. In fact, it's a sinister looking man lurking through a dark alley.
By not requiring a voter to show identification to prove his identity, catching people who lie in order to vote illegally is difficult at best.
Federal laws require employers to fill out forms when hiring a worker to ensure the employer has examined forms of identification in an effort to prove the employee is, in fact, a legal resident of the United States.
But the State of Mississippi thinks that federal practice is too restrictive for what is arguably the most important thing a citizen can do vote.
Instead of moving to get rid of the holes in our current system that encourages voter fraud, our state has chosen to remain stuck in the past mostly out of fear that a voter ID requirement would harm black voting turnout.
That notion at one time had merit. Not so long ago the system run solely by whites was manipulated to minimize the rights of black citizens. But that system has changed. Today, Adams County has two of five county supervisors who are black. Exactly half of the city's aldermen are black and approximately half of our area's judges are black, too.
As for the fears that voter ID would be a return to days of the oppressive Jim Crow era, those fears can and should be eliminated through bipartisan efforts to put the voter ID matter on the ballot and then educate the public on how helpful and harmless voter ID laws can be.”

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Growing up in the Jim Crow State of Mississippi, I was appalled. “Who are they trying to reach”, I thought. Therefore I did a little research: Natchez is in Adams County, a County that is 54% African American, yet, are we expected to be satisfied that 2 of five supervisors are African American? Would they be satisfied if the situation was reversed? These people have enough trouble remembering that the South lost the Civil War, or,that African Americans are citizens, although the "Founding Fathers" forgot to include them in the original Constitution, except 3/5th for the political count, or, that the United States of America has an African American President.

Back to the matter being discussed. The last time I checked, two out of five vptes still leaves the Board of Supervisors in Adams County with a 2/3 Majority in all votes taken by the Board.Is That American Democracy? I also thought, “What would be the number of African American Supervisors today, if the powers that be would have been allowed to force all African Americans, and it would have been all, who did not a drivers license, or have any form of identification, and would have been turned away from the polls? ONE, maybe!!! Remember the Poll Tax, Literacy Test, Grandfather Clauses, Separate-But-Equal. Remember the first election of our current Governor, with the slogan “Keep the Flag, Change the Governor” and the placing of these reminders on signs in the dead of night, like “Knight Riders” of the past.

“Jim Crow” is “Dead”?: Take a look at the continuing economic gap between Whites and African Americans, not only in the Black Belt South, but Nationwide. Look at the unemployment rate in the State of Mississippi, between Whites and African Americans, or, the high school dropout rate; the list goes on, and on, and on.

There is a saying that goes, “those who refuse to look at history are doomed to repeat it”. African Americans should never forget their history in this State, the South, or the Country. I love the phrase, “lest We Forget”

God Bless.